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Dual SWM16 Setup Question

1K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  veryoldschool 
#1 ·
I added a 2nd SWM16 switch using splitters that I bought at Solid Signal. Everything is working well. My satellite signals are still strong in the 90s.

I know that any time you split the signal from the dish you lose signal strength. How should I assess if this is an issue for me? I guess it will be worse when it rains or is cloudy. Are others using a power booster with this configuration?
 
#5 ·
Is that significant? I have no idea what the base signal strength is and if the readings one gets (95, etc) is in dBs.
 
#6 ·
After doing some testing last summer, it turns out things aren't as cut & dry or simple as previously thought.

The LNB is the main limiting factor for rainfade. At about -40 dBm [varies a bit with each LNB] it loses lock on the signal. Once this happens you're SOL.

This means we're really dealing with the range just before this.

The SWiM will amplify -45 dBm to -30 dBm, and after -45 dBm, the output will start dropping.
The receivers work down to about -62 dBm.

"What does all of this mean?"

The [increased] loss before the SWiM seems to only affect the maximum loss to the receiver after the SWiM.

If the dish to SWiM(s) doesn't have much loss, and your runs to receivers don't have much loss, the 2-way splitters aren't going to be a problem.

If the dish to SWiM gets a bit lossy, then you might want to boost the signals to help, but this would mostly be for when you have long runs from the SWiM to the receivers.
 
#8 ·
dminches said:
Is that significant? I have no idea what the base signal strength is and if the readings one gets (95, etc) is in dBs.
3 dB is 50%, "but" we're dealing with ranges in the 1000%.
Your "95" has nothing to do with dB or dBm, as it has more to do with quality of the signal, than power level. What it will show is when your drop out of range, and the quality suffers.
 
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